POV 1: No, Entrepreneurship Can Not Be Taught

It is difficult to comprehend that something that is uncertain, and unpredictable can be taught.

You can not learn to ride a bike by reading about it from a textbook, you have to actually get on a bike, try to ride it, and fall while attempting yet not give up to finally be successful. Without a real-world context, the teaching is simply futile.

So entrepreneurship can not be taught because:

1. There is no one path defined for teaching entrepreneurship.
2. Professors with no practical knowledge of building or running a startup, are not fit to impart knowledge on this subject.
3. Entrepreneurship is a balance of business skills and people skills, like empathy, leadership, and management. While an MBA can impart fundamental skills in business, legal, operations, and finance, people skills are the best learner from experience. 
4. It is an experiential subject, one that requires ‘learning by doing’.

A degree or a course may teach some fundamentals however, the essentials of running a business and being a true entrepreneur such as passion, ignition, and drive cannot be measured in some test or taught in a classroom.

Being an entrepreneur is both a fad and a need of the hour in today’s time. On one hand, where the pandemic has rebooted a lot of industries, resetting the level playing field, entrepreneurs such as Nikhil Kamath, Elon Musk, and Larry Page, on the other hand, have become role models for many. That said, it’s often debated, can entrepreneurship be taught?

There are people who think entrepreneurship can be taught in a classroom while others believe entrepreneurship is learned by doing since countless entrepreneurs have done it after having either dropped out of college or not undergoing any business education. 

Well, when it comes to getting the next generation of leaders prepped for the uncertain world, it’s true that the traditional means of education will not suffice. To adapt to the rapidly evolving world, entrepreneurs need to be visionaries who can act nimbly in face of challenges, reimagine the art of every possible and adapt to the unknowable future.

Before we dive deeper into each side of this debate, let us understand ‘entrepreneurship’.